you of?"

"Oh, pretty nearly every crime in the calendar." Boyne had
tossed the clipping down, and thrown himself comfortably into an
arm-chair near the fire. "Do you want to hear the story? It's
not particularly interesting--just a squabble over interests in
the Blue Star."

"But who is this Elwell? I don't know the name."

"Oh, he's a fellow I put into it--gave him a hand up. I told you
all about him at the time."

"I daresay. I must have forgotten." Vainly she strained back
among her memories. "But if you helped him, why does he make
this return?"

"Oh, probably some shyster lawyer got hold of him and talked him
over. It's all rather technical and complicated. I thought that
kind of thing bored you."

His wife felt a sting of compunction. Theoretically, she
deprecated the American wife's detachment from her husband's
professional interests, but in practice she had always found it
difficult to fix her attention on Boyne's report of the
transactions in which his varied interests involved him.
Besides, she had felt from the first that, in a community where
the amenities of living could be obtained only at the cost of
efforts as arduous as her husband's professional labors, such
brief leisure as they could command should be used as an escape